Sunday, October 19, 2014

Islands, Sail Boats in the Labyrinth

Ruby and I, after a wonderfully lengthy detour in the ARMC park, began our walk in the labyrinth...or at least, I attempted to begin my walk. She, who had been standing at the precipice of entry, retreated and squatted down in order to gather items, twigs, bark, leaves, monkey grass. I began my walk "Walk in Peace" says the block. "Dadda, Dadda, WAIT FOR ME!" says my daughter. I wait a few moments; she is still collecting. I begin to walk again, "WAIT!" "It's not a race, you can begin when you want to," I respond. She says, "It is a race, I decided!" I wait. She blows past me in a flurry, hands full of objects who destinies are forever changed, uprooted from one place and soon to be placed in the center. She cuts ends and is quickly in the center, and she begin to build her fairy world. With twigs logged in between stones, rocks collected in a center "island" leaf sail boats floating around. I join her in the middle and sit. "Help me, Dadda." I follow her lead in building this world.

Once complete, she stands up and makes her way out. But, before making it too far out, she finds another "sail boat" which she quickly puts in the "water." I continue to walk: "Dadda, you're supposed to wait." "You didn't tell me I was supposed to wait." She races to retrace her steps to the place she'd left, but zig zags around, trying to honor the integrity of the path, but at the same time desperate to get ahead of me. Soon she discovers she has only moved further away, so she hops from one track to another in my direction until she is firmly in front of me and then she briskly continues her walk until she is out! "I won." Yes, you did, my sweet girl.